Next Year All Our Troubles Will Be Out Of Sight

 A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark, mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.

          --James Joyce, "The Dead." 

Sleep, lucky world.
A star is born.
No, sorry: A child.
The star was just an announcement
to this little light lost.

I would follow a star

like that if it was

the dead of night

and I was alone with a bunch

of shivering sheep.

Even, I suppose,

if I was a wise man

on some sort of inexplicable

no-girls-allowed walkabout

in the desert.

I think it was a desert.

I imagine it was.

I'm sure it felt like one.

Trust me, though,

beneath these ribs lurks

the heart of a true believer

with a big, booming drum

and a feather in his cap.

I'll believe anything if it can

make me feel like something

other than a disposable

razor or a pink, quivering

grub nestled in shavings.

For God's sake, people,

there is not one thing you

could ever say that would

convince me that I am not

the proud father of a dog.